| PackageDescription | Grep Debian package information
The grep-dctrl program can answer such questions as
* "What is the Debian package foo?"
* "Which version of the Debian package bar is now current?"
* "Which Debian packages does John Doe maintain?"
* "Which Debian packages are somehow related to the Scheme
programming language?"
and with some help
* "Who maintain the essential packages of a Debian system?"
given a useful input file.
.
It is a specialised grep program that is meant for processing any
file which has the general format of a Debian package control file.
These include the dpkg available file, the dpkg status file, and the
Packages files on a distribution medium (such as a Debian CD-ROM or
an FTP site carrying Debian).
.
This package includes the specializations grep-status, grep-available
and grep-aptavail, which take their input by default from the dpkg
status file, the dpkg available file (updated by dselect update, but
see below) and the apt available database (updated by apt-get
update), respectively. The grep-available specialization is useful
mainly to users of dselect or apt, while grep-aptavail only works if
apt is installed.
.
A script, sync-available, which syncs the dpkg available file to the
apt available database without requiring dselect, is included. |